The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico is ramping up operations that have been reduced for months in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, but there is no set schedule for a return to prior waste emplacement levels, according to the head of the Department of Energy contractor for the facility.
“I unfortunately don’t have a time frame for that. It’s going to depend on the statistics locally as well as regionally, and obtaining approval from the Department of Energy,” Nuclear Waste Partnership President and Project Manager Sean Dunagan said Tuesday during a session at the American Nuclear Society’s annual meeting, which this year is being conducted solely online.
Like most Energy Department facilities, WIPP in early March dropped to mission-critical operations to reduce the number of on-site personnel and help curb the potential spread of the viral disease.
Since then, the transuranic waste repository has on average received five shipments per week from other DOE sites, Dunagan said. That is down from an average of 10 weekly prior to the federal public health emergency.
“There have been some weeks where there were no shipments,” he said. “Most weeks have approximately five shipments, there have been some with between two to four, but usually it’s around five.”
The Energy Department is following a four-part plan for restaffing its headquarters buildings and other locations: From Phase 0, which is mostly planning, to Phase 3, which would be a return to near-standard occupancy levels. WIPP was authorized on June 1 to move to Phase 1, which involves preliminary callbacks for a limited number of personnel.
“That is not a huge increase in actual operations. For some of our capital projects it is a little bit of an increase there,” Dunagan said. “It’ll be similar for the Phase 2. Phase 3 is really when you’re going to see us get back up to full operations in terms of number of shipments.”
